WVR Australia taken over by FMPAs of the end of May the website for World Vital Records (Australia) is taken over by Find My Past (Australia). The new FindMyPast.com.au website has 35 million records for Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea. Look for Australian directories, government gazettes, post office directories and other publications.

The Times Digital Archive via BANQA surprise to me is that residents of Quebec who register with the Library and Archives of Quebec (BANQ) gain free remote access to the Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985, something not accessible at Ontario libraries, or even Library and Archives Canada. The digital archives of the Globe and Mail are only available at BANQ physical locations.

London Lives (1690-1800)If you had ancestors in London prior to 1820 try a search on the free fully searchable London Lives database www.londonlives.org/of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names. Crime, poverty, and illness; apprenticeship, work, politics and money; how people voted, lived and died; all this and more can be found in these documents.

Attn LAC: Being AccountableAt a telephone conference call of the former LAC Services Advisory Board members we learned that the organization intends re-instituting the Board, with a goal of having the new and renewed members in place by September. That reflects the organization view that the Board has been helpful.The imperative for the composition to be Politically Correct, with regions and client groups adequately represented, means that the Board grew to more than 30 members, which is both expensive and unwieldy. It was all too easy for client issues that LAC management deemed to be lower priority to be buried. An example is the issue of Canadian Pacific employee files held in Calgary, raised as something LAC should attempt to acquire on numerous occasions, only to be repeatedly ignored.Further, because the Board met infrequently the agenda tended to the strategic. That's not necessarily bad although deliberation sometimes got lost in governmental gobbledygook. What was missing was a mechanism to deal with smaller more operational, and sometimes niggling, issues. At TNA this is addressed through a Users Forum, with minutes and supporting documents placed on the organization website www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/get-involved/user-forum-meetings.htm. If LAC wants to be more responsive to its clients this is the model for a mechanism it might well adopt.

Family Chronicle: July/Aug 2010The new issue of Moreshead Magazine's flagship publication arrived on Tuesday. The feature article, highlighted with a cover photo, is "Researching Civil War Ancestors: locating records for lesser-known battles and skirmishes". The issue has articles on the US Federal Census, Revolutionary War Service, and Social Security Applications so should sell well from US news-stands.

On US records, I notice that Ancestry have updated their U.S. Compiled Revolutionary War Military Service Records, 1775-1783 database, and added the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900.

Self PublishingPopular Ontario genealogist-entrepreneur Rick Roberts spoke on self-publishing at the Upper Canada Book Fair last weekend. You can review his slides at http://globalgenealogy.com/pdf/perth2010.pdf along with additional information on ISBN and CIP. Rick will likely be repeating some of the information in a pre-conference session he is giving at the BIFHSGO conference, 10-12 September 2010, www.bifhsgo.ca.

Canada's Constitution on DisplayOn Canada Day Canada's constitution goes on rare display from 10am to 3pm at 395 Wellington. Could this be a prelude to a permanent display of this and other national historic documents, in the same way that TNA exhibit the Domesday Book and other historic documents.

More Chelsea Pensioner Records OnlineThis week findmypast.co.uk added 96,464 Chelsea Pensioners records for the period 1855-1872 to the almost 507,000 Chelsea Pensioners records in total on the site.

Ice Cream for ALL, pleaseHave you seen the ad running on TV where new client kid is offered an ice cream, but it's refused to existing client kid? Apparently that's the tactic being employed by Ancestry in the UK in offering 25% discounts for Ancestry subscriptions to National Trust members, but only for new subscriptions.

More on Western Canadian DirectoriesFor those wondering about Saskatchewan and Manitoba directories, not mentioned in my last blog posting, take a look at the listings linked from www.daveobee.com/.

Welsh Immigrant Makes GoodAustralia has a new Prime Minister. Julia Gillard is that country's first female prime minister. Her parents, John and Moira Gillard, left Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan as "Ten Pound Poms" with their two daughters in 1966 when she was age five.

Summer Birth Lucky!From the My Heritage blog comes a posting http://blog.myheritage.com/2010/06/can-date-of-birth-affect-personality/. The abstract of the original article reports the finding that "In both genders and in all age groups, birth during the summer half-year was associated with significantly higher belief in being lucky, as compared to birth during the winter half-year, with a maximum around birth in May and a minimum around birth in November."

Wednesday, 23 June 2010

Ancestry Adds Historical Canadian DirectoriesBritish Columbia City DirectoriesAlberta City DirectoriesFreeBMD UpdateBritish Soldiers in the Boer War and at WaterlooDrouin Collection FreeUpper Canada in 1832Which BrowserMeasure Distance on Google MapsNew Ottawa City Archives Update

Ancestry Adds Historical Canadian DirectoriesAncestry.ca has issued a press release announcing "the completion of Canadian City and Area Directories, 1819-1906, a rich collection of more than 150,000 pages of historical records, the largest collection of historic Canadian directories available online. The collection includes the names of more than 7 million Canadians who lived during this 87- year-period of national growth.

The first release of City and Area Directories by Ancestry.ca in October of 2008 contained nearly 20,000 pages of records and 5.2 million names. Today’s completion adds a staggering 134,000 pages of records.

Almost anyone with an ancestor who lived in a Canadian town or city during the period from 1819 to 1906 will find an ancestor in the collection."

The breakdown of records by region with the number of original pages for each is: Ontario (84,059), Quebec (33,201), Nova Scotia (12,566), New Brunswick (11,051), National and Multi-Province (6,201), Manitoba (2,514), British Columbia (2,016), Newfoundland (1,194), Prince Edward Island (927), Alberta (16). For Ontario the collection is vastly expanded from just seven directories previously, to more than 50 for Toronto alone.

While not all of the project were that inspired I was pleased to note some newspaper digitization projects and the Vancouver Public Library's collection of digitized British Columbia city directories dates from 1860 up to and including 1915 at www.vpl.ca/bccd/index.phpThat's a nice complement to the Ancestry collection which has only five Vancouver directories.

Alberta DirectoriesThe Ancestry release only has one Alberta directory, for Calgary in 1885. There is a good collection of the province's directories, although for a later period, at peel.library.ualberta.ca/henderson.html. A tip of the hat to Heather Oakley for including this in her Interesting Websites column in The Ottawa Genealogist; it's one of the few things I miss in not being an OGS member.

FreeBMD UpdateThe June FreeBMD database update was installed on Monday. The database currently contains 186,909,894 distinct records (238,405,388 total records). There is the usual sprinkling of corrections and additions throughout the database. The main additions are for the 1930s and 1940s with work starting on the 1950s.

British Soldiers in the Boer War and at WaterlooAncestry has added "UK, Casualties of the Boer War, 1899-1902" with Force, Regiment, Battalion, Battery/Corps, Rank, Name, Casualty type, date, and place information on over 65,000 soldiers who either died or were wounded during the conflict. Information on 453 Canadians is included.

UK, Waterlpo Medal Role, 1815, contains information extracted from the Waterloo Medal Book (original at The National Archives, reference MINT 16/112) on soldiers who fought at Waterloo, as well as to those in preceding actions at Ligny and Quatre Bras. It was given to approximately 39,009 men and effectively forms a roll call of Wellington’s army. Information in this database includes: Name of soldier, Title, Rank, Regiment, Sub Unit, Fate.

Drouin Collection FreeAncestry.ca is giving three days of free access to the fully searchable indexes for the historic Drouin Collection on the occasion of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. Many people of UK origin living in Ontario as well as Quebec may be found in Drouin.

Upper Canada 1832If you're looking for contextual material you may find something of interest in "Statistical sketches of Upper Canada: for the use of emigrants (1832)" www.archive.org/details/cihm_32368

Which BrowserIs your web browser up to date? If not you may have problems with some of the genealogy sites you visit. Ancestry recommends Firefox 3 for both Windows and Macintosh as well as Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 for Windows. As of June 2009 Ancestry is no longer optimized for Internet Explorer 6, and support for Internet Explorer 8 is not yet complete. 32 % of visitors to this blog use Firefox3.6; 28% use IE7.0 and 17% use IE8.0.

Measure Distance on Google MapsI use Google Maps a lot for locating places in my family history and examining the geographic context. One thing I've missed is a distance measurement tool which is available on Google Earth. Now Google Maps Labs has added a tool which when activated adds a small ruler at the bottom of the map. Click on the ruler and you'll be able to use the distance measurement tool by clicking on the map and tracing the path you want to measure.

New Ottawa City Archives UpdateI took pictures at the new building on 22 June. Unfortunately it's not quite as well along as depicted in this artists impression on a billboard at the site.

UK history photo finder allows you to search and view digitised historical photographs of the UK and Ireland. Starting with the Dixon-Scott collection, which holds more than 14,000 photographs taken in the 1920s-1940s.

Valuation Office Survey mapsof England and Wales from 1910 to 1915 allows you to search for a particular name within a large number of records from the TNA collection. You can and identify and order items from nearly 50,000 Valuation Office Survey maps.

Person search, still in development, permits searching for a particular name within a large number of records from the TNA collection including a number of First World War records, Royal Navy records, criminal registers, law suits, wills and pension records.

LostCousins Newsletter, census editionThe latest newsletter from LostCousins includes items on:What DID happen to the 1931 Census? Is the 1921 Census in good condition? When will the 1911 Scotland census be released? Read it athttp://lostcousins.com/newsletters/jun10news.htm

LAC Awards

National Public Service Week, was June 13 to 19. Congratulations to the publicly anonymous front-line employees of Library and Archives Canada who were recognized at a ceremony at the Gatineau Preservation Center last Thursday for providing exceptional service.

UK WDYTYA CelebritiesIf you've never heard of most of the celebrities who will be appearing in the eighth series of the BBC TV program "Who Do You Think You Are?" you're not alone. The BBC announcement talks about "TV legend Bruce Forsyth", hardly a household name in North America. Others are film star Rupert Everett, gardening presenter Monty Don, soap star turned pop singer Jason Donovan and actors Robert Penry Jones and Alexander Armstrong. The lack of name recognition is undoubtedly why the British series hasn't been picked up in North America.

OGS BlogAs of 14 June the Ontario Genealogical Society has a new blog. There are lots of postings. Can they keep up the pace? Check it out at www.ogs.on.ca/ogsblog/

BIFHSGO NewsThe Society Annual General meeting held on Saturday 19 June 2010 saw the presentation of awards and election of a new Board.

The award for best article in Anglo Celtic Roots was presented to Carol Annett. Best presentation by a member at a monthly meeting during the year, based on a vote by the membership, went to Glenn Wright for his presentation at the February meeting "Just Names on a List? Let's Take Another Look at Passenger Manifests"

Glenn Wright was also named to the BIFHSGO Hall of Fame in recognition of his many contributions to family history and the society.

Four new directors and the new president were elected. The new President is ... you guessed it ... Glenn Wright.

The Upper Canada Book FairThe 26th and 27th of June will see the Upper Canada Book Fair, held at the Ecoty Education Centre, near Perth, Ontario. A full schedule of talks and panel discussions is set for both days, including lectures by most of the 20 or so authors who will be attending with copies of their books for sale. Author/speakers in attendance include Rick Roberts, Janet Uren, Edwinna von Baeyer, Dianne Graves, Charlotte Gray and more. Admission is $15 for one day, $25 for both http://ecotay.com/upper-canada-book-fair-programme/

BIFHSGO Monthly Meeting and AGMStarting at 9am on Saturday June 19 at Library and Archives Canada the meeting will highlight GREAT MOMENTS IN GENEALOGY presentations by BIFHSGO Members:

"Miracles Do Happen" by Shirely-Ann Pyefinch"Finding Uncle Bernard or How Not To Do Genealogy" by George Swift"Lily, Thistle, Fur and Feather: The Ancestry of Flore Couvrette" by Carol Annett"The Importance of Being Ernest" by Chris McPhail"Albert Edward Weir, Adopted Son: The Search for His Parents" by Patricia McGregor

Southern California Genealogical Society JamboreeWrap-upHere are thoughts on the talks I heard at the Jamboree held in Burbank from 11 to 13 June 2010.

Friday

Kathryn Hope Borges, who is director and co-founder of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, spoke on "Exploring Your Surname" including formation of surnames, understanding the surname, one name studies, and DNA studies. I was fortunate to be able to sit down with her after the presentation to discuss DNA, and especially autosomal DNA analysis. She helped establish a link to a DNA cousin of mine.

Arlene Eakle, a founder of the Association of Professional Genealogists, spoke on migration patterns into the central US showing how ethnic migration was often highly geographically circumscribed, otherwise termed chain migration. Her's was the only presentation I attended that did not use PowerPoint.

Saturday

Suzanne Russo Adams from Ancestry.com in a crowded session spoke on what's new on Ancestry.

Bennett Greenspan, founder of Family Tree DNA gave an overview of the company autosomal test called Family Finder. By the first week of July he expects to provide a percent origin figures for DNA, later an X-DNA browser, and in the fourth quarter a new analysis tool - likely one that will identify people who match on a specific DNA segment. Unlike 23andMe he was unwilling to give information on the number of clients the company has for its autosomal testing.Throughout the Jamboree the company exhibit was always busy.

Joanna L Mountain spoke on 23andMe's autosomal testing for genealogical purposes. The company now has about 40,000 clients, about 20,000 of North European origin, that's for health and genealogical interests combined. They will soon be providing more refined analysis on ethnic and national origin.

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak gave a new presentation "Neglected History" on some of bit players in American history that she has been researching.

Sunday

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak spoke on her research on unclaimed persons, people found dead whose relatives are being sought by county coroners. See www.unclaimedpersons.com, www.unclaimedpersons.org, and two year old Facebook group which has tackled 240 cases in two years with 185 of them resolved.

Lisa Louise Cooke reviewed strategies to find living relatives. She mentioned that social networks are fast becoming a prime source for tracing the living. In a separate conversation with Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak she commented that the greater availability of state civil registration records, despite the pressures of overzealous privacy advocates, was the greatest advance in this field in the past year.

Ron Arons, who appeared for most of the conference in a convict suit, told a "putting flesh on the bones" story about researching his great-grandfather who served in Sing Sing convicted of bigamy.

I'd have to judge the jamboree a significant success. Well over 1600 people registered, and with speakers and exhibitors the number was probably close to 2000 making it the second-largest family history event in the USA. There was a considerable blogger presence, many of them sitting together blogging. Presentations from the two major providers of autosomal DNA analysis services for genealogy was a significant attraction. Genetic genealogy has suddenly come of age. Words are from vendors was that they generally had a successful event, commercially encouraging following similar success at the NGS and OGS conferences

Sunday, 13 June 2010

I'm attending the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in Burbank and enjoying the company of other genealogy bloggers, DNA enthusiasts and other family historians. About 1600 people are attending in a facility which allows for at least eight parallel sessions, a large marketplace and lots of casual meeting areas.

The meeting is exceptionally well organized by the Southern California Genealogical Society, which has no paid staff, yet puts on this large conference each year. I suspect that profits from the jamboree allow the Society to keep membership fees low, much lower than, say, the Ontario Genealogical Society.

Several Canadians are participating including Ed Zapletal and Rick Cree from Moorshead Magazines; and multi-talented Dave Obee who is most recently author of Destination Canada. Louise St-Denis from the National Society for Genealogical Studies is giving several presentations on Canadian topics.

As is common with US conferences I have attended the basic registration fees are kept low by not offering free refreshments, minimizing and generating revenue from additional cost lectures, breakfasts, banquets, advertising, etc.

Amongst the most interesting topics were two talks by rival autosomal DNA testing companies, 23andMe and Family Tree DNA. Both announced no cost extensions to their offerings giving new or additional information on geographic or ethnic origin.

-Normally you would need a subscription or PayAsYouGo credits to view our records - some of which normally cost 30 credits each - so to be able to see them for free is a rare opportunity

-Keep an eye on our blog for a competition question to enter during each England match. You'll need to answer all the questions correctly for a chance to win, so make sure you don't miss any. The prize is a goodie bag containing a digital camera, vouchers for a year's Full subscription plus much more

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

In this issue:Family Tree DNA special offer on Y-DNA testsDeceasedonline.com adds more than 50,000 English recordsNova Scotia Vital Record Indexes at AncestryHow Time Flysarti-FACTS: Antiques and Heritage Preservation DayBeechwood Cemetery Walking Tour

Family Tree DNA Special Offer on Y-DNA testsFTDNA has promotional prices for the following tests until June 25 in conjunction with the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree. Kits need to be paid for by June 30, 2010. Y-DNA37 for $119 (Regular price would be $149) Y-DNA67 for $199 (Regular price would be $239) Y-DNA37+mtDNA for $159 (Combined test would cost $238)Info is at www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?code=D37109&Group=SCGS

Deceasedonline.com adds more than 50,000 English recordsBefore the end of July, around 243,000 burial records going back to the late 18th century will be added to www.deceasedonline.com comprising computerised records, digital scans of burial registers and details of grave contents. As well as additions in Aberdeen already mentioned look for:

In Salcombe in the South Hams district of Devon, 2,100 records from Shadycombe Cemetery, opened in 1879, and 1,000 burial records from Bonfire Hill Cemetery, opened in 1941.

40,000 records from Newark Cemetery in Nottinghamshire, opened in 1856, which includes a large area and memorial dedicated to Polish soldiers and military stationed in the UK during WW2.

From the London Borough of Brent, Carpender’s Park Cemetery, located near Watford in Hertfordshire, approximately 10,250 burial records for this relatively new cemetery opened in 1954.

Currently 12 councils have placed their records onto Deceased Online and it is expected that this will rise to over 20 by the end of the year. It is estimated that there will be approximately 4 million burial and cremation records on the website by the end of 2010 and this is expected to grow to around 10 million at the end of 2011.

Nova Scotia Vital Record Indexes at Ancestry Indexes to Nova Scotia Births, 1836-1907, Marriages, 1763-1932, and Deaths, 1864-1877, 1890-1957 are now available to Ancestry.ca subscribers. To use the facility you have to agree to additional non-disclosure terms. As with England and Wales, indexes only are available. Full certificates have to be purchased from the government agency which can be done through a direct link from Ancestry.

How Time FlysOn 10 June 2009 Ancestry.ca announced the world-first online launch of the historical Canadian Censuses, 1851-1916, with 32 million names.

arti-FACTS: Antiques and Heritage Preservation DayOn Saturday June 12, 2010, from 11am to 3pm, the Canadian Association for Conservation is holding an event at Library and Archives Canada. Attendees will learn how to store, handle, and care for antiques as well as what conservation and restoration treatments are available. Bring in your antiques for a personalized consultation by a professional conservator. More than half a dozen experts with various specialities will be available. Appraisals are not being provided. Admission is $5.

This event is being held on the final day of the Canadian Association for Conservation annual conference, this year being held in Ottawa from June 10-12. There is more information on the conference at www.cac-accr.ca/english/e-CAC-conference.asp

Most Popular Genealogy SoftwareThe Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree gets underway on Friday and as a prelude the organizers collected a variety of information from registrants. Family Tree Maker remains the most popular genealogy software, mentioned by 21.5% of registrants responding. Next amongst the stand-alone dedicated genealogy programs is Legacy Family Tree (10%) and RootsMagic (7.4%). However, Ancestry Online Family Trees, word processing and spreadsheet software were each mentioned more than Legacy. See the full result at:http://genealogyjamboree.blogspot.com/2010/06/jamboree-factoid-software-programs-used.html

Yet More Chelsea Pensioners RecordsAlmost 100,000 new Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records, for 1855-1872, are added to findmypast.co.uk. You can now search 96,434 records and 437,825 images for this period. This new batch of records brings the total amount of Chelsea Pensioners records and images on findmypast.co.uk to 506,870 records and 3,196,935 images.

Lancashire Businesses OnlineThe University of Manchester has placed the records of 3000 small businesses between 1760 and 1820 online- most relating to Manchester and Liverpool. You can search via name, business and document for your grocer or wheelwright ancestor and read documents related to them. www.northwestfamilybusiness.arts.manchester.ac.uk/Intro.aspx

Ancestry Adds Dunfermline Journal, 1851-1931 This is a page image database for the Dunfermline Journal, the main local newspaper of Dunfermline, Scotland, dating from 1851-1931. There is no full text search capability. The issues available are monthly from 1851 to 1862. 1863 to 1871 is missing, and the subsequent issues are weekly.

Re-activate ScotlandsPeople creditsScotlandsPeople is offering all customers who have existing credits in their account the opportunity to re-activate and use the credits at no cost through the use of a voucher code. Use the free voucher code SCOTLANDSPEOPLE which will re-set the credit expiry to 90 days in their account. Customers may use this voucher any time until 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 17th June, 2010. The voucher may only be used once in each account. For information on how to use the voucher code go to www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?1359

Abbreviations Used in Canadian Military Service FilesPuzzled by a military abbreviation? If its in a Canadian Military Service file a new webpage developed by the Genealogy Services of Library and Archives Canada can likely help. See: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-909.011-e.html.

FindMyPast adds to Chelsea Pensioners' Service Records Onlinefindmypast.co.uk now have records for more than 500,000 Chelsea Pensioners' of the British Army between 1873-1900 available to search online . The records include servicemen born in the UK and throughout the world, including India and Jamaica.